We live through our bodies, present them to others, care for them, measure them, and increasingly turn them into sources of data. But what happens when consumer researchers treat the body itself as a central site of inquiry?

In this episode, Cristel Russell, Ph.D., one of the co-editors of a special issue of the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research on “body building,” joins our own Anne Hamby, Ph.D., to explore the many ways the body shapes—and is shaped by—consumption.

The special issue began with three broad pillars: the body consuming, consuming for the body, and consuming one’s body. But the research that emerged quickly stretched beyond those categories, revealing just how many questions about consumption are also questions about embodiment.

Dr. Russell discusses the body as both an internal experience and an external presentation; as a biological entity, a site of power, and an archive of what we have lived through. The conversation also examines how bodies are continually shaped by experience, culture, and consumption—and how researchers can study those processes through experiments, health-tracking technologies, and the growing streams of data our bodies produce.

It’s a conversation about what the body means, what it records, what it reveals, and why consumer researchers are paying closer attention to it—a growing body of research about the body itself.

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This episode was hosted by Anne Hamby, Ph.D.
Consumer Insights 101 is a production of the Association for Consumer Research.